Avatars & Archetypes: Evolving Jung's Concepts on Persona and Anima/Animus to Find Your Whole Self

Something I love about wrestling is that it creates this ability to look at a character, a person, and especially as a younger person, see yourself in that character. There are different personalities, expressions, stories, presentations, body types, colors that represent the person, pyro, theme music, and styles of wrestling - grapplers, brawlers, high flyers, agile people, ground and pound, etc. There are so many different types of characters that someone can go to a show and resonate with.

When I took my kids to a wrestling show, my stepson in particular was really excited to basically try on every single character that came out. He saw them doing some sort of symbol or gesture or hand movement and he just tried them on, kept "putting on outfits to see what fit him." I recognized in myself the ability to do that when I was a kid - with video game characters, people on TV shows and movies. There's this exploration of "what do I resonate with?" This comes through sports too, seeing someone performing at a high level and aspiring to be like them.

This exploration of avatars and archetypes is something we often go through as kids, to see what's possible for us and try on these different characters to see who we want to become. In a lot of ways, this is represented through the earlier gods and goddess archetypes - Egyptian, Greek, Mayan - that manifest today in things like wrestling, the Olympics, and even politics. They represent these energies that people aspire to, for better or worse. It may not be the person in its entirety, but just their look, the way they speak, stand or present themselves.

This leads to the Jungian concept of persona - we're often trying to choose and look at avatars to develop a persona. Becoming an avatar is essentially like connecting ourselves to the person, idea, or character that we're resonating with. Whether or not that matches up to our actual physicality or capabilities, that's work to be done later to reconcile what we connect ourselves to relate to who we expected ourselves to be.

In a lot of ways during this time, we're developing who we expect ourselves to be - whether we want to become a "big strong boy" or a "nurturing feminine woman." But in this day and age, it's so much more nuanced and complex than anything ever documented before, especially in terms of masculinity and femininity. Being a man doesn't necessarily mean going out and chopping wood and building a log cabin - it may mean being a software engineer with more traditionally feminine qualities in terms of personal relationships.

The challenge comes when that persona gets used for everything - it becomes a hammer and all the world's a nail. If you want to become a wrestler and take that attitude to everything in your life, you might have trouble with your relationships or going to the DMV. The flexibility of persona comes later through doing "shadow work" - exploring the parts of ourselves we've repressed or hidden away.

Jung saw the self as having different layers - the ego, the persona, the shadow, the anima/animus (the animating force), and the collective unconscious. The persona is the interface between ourselves and the outer world, the ego is the interface between the self and the persona, and the shadow is everything that gets filtered out. The anima/animus is the animating force, the soul or spirit that makes us alive.

Having an animated force, a soul, protects us from the complicated, timeless, boundless inner world that can feel treacherous if we fully submit to it. Traditionally, the anima/animus has been seen as the opposite of the persona - men want to be men, women want to be women. But today, it's much more nuanced and complex.

The challenge when we're younger is that we must do all this filtering and develop a rigid persona. But as we grow, we need to expand that self and allow the ego and shadow to be partners rather than just protective forces. We need to be willing to tap into parts of ourselves we've repressed or hidden away, to discover our true, animating soul.

This is my work now - pulling forward aspects of myself that I've long repressed, like my emotionality and spiritual side. I want to bring a look and a persona representing more of the fullness of what I truly am, not just who I feel I'm supposed to be. It's about agency, choice, and letting the self be in control, not the rigid ego.

Approaching this kind of inner work with curiosity and not judgment is key. It's about discovery, not forcing ourselves to be something completely different overnight. By approaching ourselves with grace and hope, we can find our true, animating soul and live more authentically.

I hope this exploration of avatars, archetypes, and the layers of the self resonates with you. Let me know your thoughts and experiences in the comments below. And if you'd like to support this ongoing work, consider becoming a premium member.